THE TRAMPLING OF THE LILIES
By Rafael Sabatini
CONTENTS
PART I
THE OLD RULE
CHAPTER
I. MONSIEUR THE SECRETARY
II. LORDS OF LIFE AND DEATH
III. THE WORD OF BELLECOUR
IV. THE DISCIPLES OF ROUSSEAU
PART II
THE NEW RULE
V. THE SHEEP TURNED WOLVES
VI. THE CITIZEN COMMISSIONER
VII. LA BOULAYE DISCHARGES A DEBT
VIII. THE INVALIDS AT BOISVERT
IX. THE CAPTIVES
X. THE BAISER LAMOURETTE
XI. THE ESCAPE
XII. THE AWAKENING
XIII. THE ROAD TO LIEGE
XIV. THE COURIER
XV. LA BOULAYE BAITS HIS HOOK
PART III
THE EVERLASTING RULE
XVI. CECILE DESHAIX
XVII. LA BOULAYE'S PROMISE
XVIII. THE INCORRUPTIBLE
XIX. THE THEFT
XX. THE GRATITUDE OF OMBREVAL
XXI. THE ARREST
XXII. THE TRIBUNAL
XXIII. THE CONCIERGERIE
PART I. THE OLD RULE
These are they Who ride on the court gale, control its tides;
***
Whose frown abases and whose smile exalts. They shine like any rainbow--and, perchance, Their colours are as transient.
Old Play
CHAPTER I. MONSIEUR THE SECRETARY
It was spring at Bellecour--the spring of 1789, a short three monthsbefore the fall of the Bastille came to give the nobles pause, andmake them realise that these new philosophies, which so long they havederided, were by no means the idle vapours they had deemed them.
By the brook, plashing its glittering course through the park ofBellecour, wandered La Boulaye, his long, lean, figure clad with asombreness that was out of harmony in that sunlit, vernal landscape.But the sad-hued coat belied that morning a heart that sang within hisbreast as joyously as any linnet of the woods through which he strayed.That he was garbed in black was but the outward indication of hisclerkly office, for he was secretary to the most noble the Marquis deFresnoy de Bellecour, and so clothed in the livery of the ink by whichhe lived. His face was pale and lean and thoughtful, but within hisgreat, intelligent eyes there shone a light of new-born happiness. Underhis arm he carried a volume of the new philosophies which Rousseau hadlately given to the world, and which was contributing so vastly to themighty change that was impending. But within his soul there dweltin that hour no such musty subject as the metaphysical dreams of oldRousseau. His mood inclined little to the "Discourses upon the Origin ofInequality" which his elbow hugged to his side. Rather was it a mood ofsong and joy and things of light, and his mind was running on a stringof rhymes which mentally he offered up to his divinity. A high-bornlady was she, daughter to his lordly employer, the most noble Marquisof Bellecour. And he a secretary, a clerk! Aye, but a clerk with a greatsoul, a secretary with a great belief in the things to come, which inthat musty tome beneath his arm were dimly prophesied.
And as he roamed beside the brook, his feet treading the elastic,velvety turf, and crushing heedlessly late primrose and stray violet,his blood quickened by the soft spring breeze, fragrant with hawthornand the smell of the moist brown earth, La Boulaye's happiness gatheredstrength from the joy that on that day of spring seemed to invest allNature. An old-world song stole from his firm lips-at first timidly,like a thing abashed in new surroundings, then in bolder tones thatechoed faintly through the trees
"Si le roi m'avait donne Paris, sa grande ville, Et qui'il me fallut quitter L'amour de ma mie, Je dirais au roi Louis Reprenez votre Paris. J'aime mieux ma mie, O gai! J'aime mieux ma mie!"
How mercurial a thing is a lover's heart! Here was one whose habits wereof solemnity and gloomy thought turned, so joyous that he could singaloud, alone in the midst of sunny Nature, for no better reason thanthat Suzanne de Bellecour had yesternight smiled as--for some twominutes by the clock--she had stood speaking with him.
"Presumptuous that I am," said he to the rivulet, to contradict himselfthe next moment. "But no; the times are changing. Soon we shall beequals all, as the good God made us, and--"
He paused, and smiled pensively. And as again the memory of heryesternight's kindness rose before him, his smile broadened; it becamea laugh that went ringing down the glade, scaring a noisy thrush intosilence and sending it flying in affright across the scintillant watersof the brook. Then that hearty laugh broke sharply off, as, behindhim, the sweetest voice in all the world demanded the reason of thismad-sounding mirth.
La Boulaye's breath seemed in that instant to forsake him and he grewpaler than Nature and the writer's desk had fashioned him. Awkwardly heturned and made her a deep bow.
"Mademoiselle! You--you see that you surprised me!" he faltered, like afool. For how should he, whose only comrades had been books, havelearnt to bear himself in the company of a woman, particularly when shebelonged to the ranks of those whom--despite Rousseau and his otherdear philosophers--he had been for years in the habit of accounting hisbetters?
"Why, then, I am glad, Monsieur, that I surprised you in so gay ahumour--for, my faith, it is a rare enough thing."
"True, lady," said he foolishly, yet politely agreeing with her, "it isa rare thing." And he sighed--"Helas!"
At that the laughter leapt from her young lips, and turned him hot andcold as he stood awkwardly before her.
"I see that we shall have you sad at the thought of how rare ishappiness, you that but a moment back were--or so it seemed--so joyous.Or is it that my coming has overcast the sky of your good humour?" shedemanded archly.
He blushed like a school-girl, and strenuously protested that it was notso. In his haste he fell headlong into the sin of hastiness--as was butnatural--and said perhaps too much.
"Your coming, Mademoiselle?" he echoed. "Nay but even had I been sad,your coming must have dispelled my melancholy as the coming of the sundispels the mist upon the mountains."
"A poet?" She mocked him playfully, with a toss of black curls and adistracting glance of eyes blue as the heavens above them. "A poet,Monsieur, and I never suspected it, for all that I held you a greatscholar. My father says you are."
"Are we not all poets at some season of our lives?" quoth he, forgrowing accustomed to her presence--ravished by it, indeed--his couragewas returning fast and urging him beyond the limits of discretion.
"And in what season may this rhyming fancy touch us?" she asked."Enlighten me, Monsieur."
He smiled, responsive to her merry mood, and his courage ever swellingunder the suasion of it, he answered her in a fearless, daring fashionthat was oddly unlike his wont. But then, he was that day a mantransformed.
"It comes, Mademoiselle, upon some spring morning such as this--for isnot spring the mating season, and have not poets sung of it, inspiredand conquered by it? It comes in the April of life, when in our heartswe bear the first fragrant bud of what shall anon blossom into aglorious summer bloom red as is Love's livery and perfumed beyond allelse that God has set on earth for man's delight and thankfulness."
The intensity with which he spoke, and the essence of the speechitself, left her a moment dumb with wonder and with an incomprehensibleconsternation, born of some intuition not yet understood.
"And so, Monsieur, the Secretary," said she at last, a nervous laughquivering in her first words, "from all this wondrous verb
iage I am totake it that you love?"
"Aye, that I love, dear lady," he cried, his eyes so intent upon herthat her glance grew timid and fell before them. And then, a secondlater, she could have screamed aloud in apprehension, for the book ofJean Jacques Rousseau lay tumbled in the grass where he had flung it,even as he flung himself upon his knees before her. "You may take itindeed that I love--that I love you, Mademoiselle."
The audacious words being spoken, his courage oozed away andanti-climax, followed. He paled and trembled, yet he knelt on untilshe should bid him rise, and furtively he watched her face. He saw itdarken; he saw the brows knit; he noted the quickening breath, and inall these signs he read his doom before she uttered it.
"Monsieur, monsieur," she answered him, and sad was her tone, "to whatlengths do you urge this springtime folly? Have you forgotten so yourstation--yes, and mine--that because I talk with you and laugh with you,and am kind to you, you must presume to speak to me in this fashion?What answer shall I make you, Monsieur--for I am not so cruel that I cananswer you as you deserve."
An odd thing indeed was La Boulaye's courage. An instant ago he had felta very coward, and had quivered, appalled by the audacity of his ownwords. Now that she assailed him thus, and taxed him with that sameaudacity, the blood of anger rushed to his face--anger of the qualitythat has its source in shame. In a second he was on his feet before her,towering to the full of his lean height. The words came from him ina hot stream, which for reckless passion by far outvied his erstwhileamatory address.
"My station?" he cried, throwing wide his arms. "What fault lies inmy station? I am a secretary, a scholar, and so, by academic right, agentleman. Nay, Mademoiselle, never laugh; do not mock me yet. In whatdo you find me less a man than any of the vapid caperers that fill yourfather's salon? Is not my shape as good? Are not my arms as strong, myhands as deft, my wits as keen, and my soul as true? Aye," he pursuedwith another wild wave of his long arms, "my attributes have all thesevirtues, and yet you scorn me--you scorn me because of my station, soyou say!"
How she had angered him! All the pent-up gall of years against thesupercilia of the class from which she sprang surged in that moment tohis lips. He bethought him now of the thousand humiliations his proudspirit had suffered at their hands when he noted the disdain with whichthey addressed him, speaking to him--because he was compelled to carvehis living with a quill--as though he were less than mire. It was not somuch against her scorn of him that he voiced his bitter grievance, butagainst the entire noblesse of France, which denied him the right tocarry a high head because he had not been born of Madame la Duchesse,Madame la Marquise, or Madame la Comtesse. All the great thoughts of awondrous transformation, which had been sown in him by the revolutionaryphilosophers he had devoured with such appreciation, welled up now, andsuch scraps of that infinity of thought as could find utterance he castbefore the woman who had scorned him for his station. Presumptuous hehad accounted himself--but only until she had found him so. By that thepresumption, it seemed, had been lifted from him, and he held that whathe had said to her of the love he bore her was no more than by virtue ofhis manhood he had the right to say.
She drew back before him, and shrank in some measure of fear, for helooked very fierce. Moreover, he had said things which professed him arevolutionist, and the revolutionists, whilst being a class which shehad been taught to despise and scorn, dealt, she knew, in a violencewhich it might be ill to excite.
"Monsieur," she faltered, and with her hand she clutched at herriding-habit of green velvet, as if preparing to depart, "you are notyourself. I am beyond measure desolated that you should have so spokento me. We have been good friends, M. La Boulaye. Let us forget thisscene. Shall we?" Her tones grew seductively conciliatory.
La Boulaye half turned from her, and his smouldering eye fell upon "TheDiscourses" lying on the grass. He stooped and picked up the volume.The act might have seemed symbolical. For a moment he had cast asidehis creed to woo a woman, and now that she had denied him he returned toRousseau, and gathered up the tome almost in penitence at his momentarydefection.
"I am quite myself, Mademoiselle," he answered quietly. His cheeks wereflushed, but beyond that, his excitement seemed to have withered. "Itis you who yesternight, for one brief moment and again to-day--were notyourself, and to that you owe it that I have spoken to you as I havedone."
Between these two it would seem as the humour of the one waned, that ofthe other waxed. Her glance kindled anew at his last words.
"I?" she echoed. "I was not myself? What are you saying, Monsieur theSecretary?"
"Last night, and again just now, you were so kind, you--you smiled sosweetly--"
"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, angrily interrupting him. "See what you arefor all your high-sounding vaunts of yourself and your attributes! Awoman may not smile upon you, may not say one kind word to you, butyou must imagine you have made a conquest. Ma foi, you and yours donot deserve to be treated as anything but vassals. When we show you akindness, see how you abuse it. We extend to you our little finger andyou instantly lay claim to the whole arm. Because last night I permittedmyself to exchange a jest with you, because I chance to be kind to youagain to-day, you repay me with insults!"
"Stop!" he cried, rousing himself once more. "That is too much to say,Mademoiselle. To tell a woman that you love her is never to insult her.To be loved is never to be slighted. Upon the meanest of His creaturesit is enjoined to love the same God whom the King loves, and there isno insult to God in professing love for Him. Would you make a woman morethan that?"
"Monsieur, you put questions I have no mind to answer; you suggesta discussion I have no inclination to pursue. For you and me let itsuffice that I account myself affronted by your words, your tone, andyour manner. You drive me to say these things; by your insistence youcompel me to be harsh. We will end this matter here and now, Monsieur,and I will ask you to understand that I never wish it reopened, elseshall I be forced to seek protection at the hands of my father or mybrother."
"You may seek it now, Suzanne," quoth a voice from the thicket at herback, a voice which came to startle both of them though in differentways. Before they had recovered from their surprise the Marquis deBellecour stood before them. He was a tall man of some fifty years ofage, but so powerful of frame and so scrupulous in dress that he mighthave conveyed an impression of more youth. His face, though handsomein a high-bred way, was puffed and of an unhealthy yellow. But the eyeswere as keen as the mouth was voluptuous, and in his carefully dressedblack hair there were few strands of grey.
He came slowly forward, and his lowering glance wandered from hisdaughter to his secretary in inquiry. At last--
"Well?" he demanded. "What is the matter?"
"It is nothing, Monsieur," his daughter answered him. "A trifling affair'twixt M. la Boulaye and me, with which I will not trouble you."
"It is not nothing, my lord," cried La Boulaye, his voice vibratingoddly. "It is that I love your daughter and that I have told her of it."He was in a very daring mood that morning.
The Marquis glanced at him in dull amazement. Then a flush crept intohis sallow cheeks and mounted to his brow. An inarticulate grunt camefrom his thick lips.
"Canaille!" he exclaimed, through set teeth. "Can you have presumed sofar?"
He carried a riding-switch, and he seemed to grasp it now in a mannerpeculiarly menacing. But La Boulaye was nothing daunted. Lost he alreadyaccounted himself, and on the strength of the logic that if a man musthang, a sheep as well as a lamb may be the cause of it, he took whatchances the time afforded him to pile up his debt.
"There is neither insolence nor presumption in what I have done," heanswered, giving back the Marquis look for look and scowl for scowl."You deem it so because I am the secretary to the Marquis de Bellecourand she is the daughter of that same Marquis. But these are no more thanthe fortuitous circumstances in which we chance to find ourselves. Thatshe is a woman must take rank before the fact that she is your daughter,and that I am a man must
take rank before the fact that I am yoursecretary. Not, then, as your secretary speaking to your daughter haveI told this lady that I love her, but as a man speaking to a woman. Toutter that should be--nay, is--the right of every man; to hear itshould be honouring to every woman worthy of the name. In a primitivecondition--"
"A thousand devils!" blazed the Marquis, unable longer to containhimself. "Am I to have my ears offended by this braying? Miserable scum,you shall be taught what is due to your betters."
His whip cracked suddenly, and the lash leapt serpentlike into the air,to descend and coil itself about La Boulaye's head and face. A cry brokefrom the young man, as much of pain as of surprise, and as the lash wasdrawn back, he clapped his hands to his seared face. But again he feltit, cutting him now across the hand with which he had masked himself.With a maddened roar he sprang upon his aggressor. In height he was theequal of the Marquis, but in weight he seemed to be scarce more thanthe half of his opponent's. Yet a nervous strength dwelt unsuspected inthose lean arms and steely wrists.
Mademoiselle stood by looking on, with parted lips and eyes that wereintent and anxious. She saw that figure, spare and lithe as a greyhound,leap suddenly upon her father, and the next instant the whip was in thesecretary's hands, and he sprang back from the nobleman, who stood whiteand quivering with rage, and perhaps, too, with some dismay.
"That I do not break it across your back, M. le Marquis, said the youngman," as he snapped the whip on his knee, "you may thank your years."With that he flung the two pieces wide into the sunlit waters of thebrook. "But I will have satisfaction, Monsieur. I will take payment forthis." And he pointed to the weal that disfigured his face.
"Satisfaction?" roared the Marquis, hoarse in his passion. "Would youdemand satisfaction of me, animal?"
"No," answered the young man, with a wry smile. "Your years againprotect you. But you have a son, and if by to-morrow it should cometo pass that you have a son no more, you may account yourself, throughthis"--and again he pointed to the weal--"his murderer."
"Do you mean that you would seek to cross swords with the Vicomte?"gasped the nobleman, in an unbelief so great that it gained theascendency over his anger.
"That is what I mean, Monsieur. In practice he has often done so. Heshall do so for once in actual earnest."
"Fool!" was the contemptuous answer, more coldly delivered now, for theMarquis was getting himself in hand. "If you come near Bellecour again,if you are so much as found within the grounds of the park, I'll haveyou beaten to death by my grooms for your presumption. Keep you thememory of that promise in mind, Sir Secretary, and let it warn you toavoid Bellecour, as you would a plague-house. Come, Suzanne," he said,turning abruptly to his daughter, "Enough of this delightful morninghave we already wasted on this canaille."
With that he offered her his wrist, and so, without so much as anotherglance at La Boulaye, she took her departure.
The secretary remained where they had left him, pale of face--saving thefortuitous crimson mark which the whip had cut--and very sick at heart.The heat of the moment being spent, he had leisure to contemplate hisplight. A scorned lover, a beaten man, a dismissed secretary! He lookedsorrowfully upon his volume of "The Discourses," and for the first timea doubt crossed his mind touching the wisdom of old Jean Jacques. Wasthere would there ever be any remedy for such a condition of things asnow prevailed?
Already the trees had hidden the Marquis and his daughter from LaBoulaye's sight. The young revolutionist felt weary and lonely--dearGod, how lonely! neither kith nor kin had he, and of late all theinterest of his life--saving always that absorbed by Jean Jacques--hadlain in watching Suzanne de Bellecour, and in loving her silently anddistantly. Now that little crumb of comfort was to be his no more, hewas to go away from Bellecour, away from the sight of her for all time.And he loved her, loved her, loved her!
He tossed his arms to Heaven with a great sigh that was a sob almost,then he passed his hands over his face, and as they came in contactwith the swollen ridge that scored it, love faded from his mind, andvindictiveness came to fill its room.
"But for this," he cried aloud. "I shall take payment--aye, as there isa God!"
Then turning, and with "The Discourses" held tightly to his side, hemoved slowly away, following the course of the gleaming waters.